“We knew he was going to die” Rahul talks of his father’s assassination

Talking of your loved ones who have passed away is never easy. And talking about the ones who killed them is even more.

So how long did it take for Rahul Gandhi to forgive his father assassinators?

Congress President Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday that he and his sister Priyanka Gandhi had “completely forgiven” their father Rajiv Gandhi’s killers.

LTTE, a militant organization from Sri Lanka, led by Velupillai Prabhakaran was found responsible for plotting and executing the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

When asked during an interactive session in Kuala Lumpur if he and his sister Priyanka Gandhi had forgiven his father Rajiv Gandhi’s killers, Rahul Gandhi said: “We were very upset and hurt and for many years, we were quite angry. But, somehow, completely…in fact, completely (forgiven).

“When one realizes that when these events take place, its collision of ideas, forces, confusion. That’s where you get caught. When I saw Prabhakaran lying dead on TV (in 2009), I got two feelings – first was why they are humiliating this man in this way.

“And second was…I felt really bad for him and for his kids,” said Gandhi during the interactive session.

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“We have been through this experience, so we understand. I literally find it difficult to hate people, even my sister does. I don’t like any kind of violence.”

In 1998, a TADA court found 26 people guilty of conspiracy and murder and also held Velupillai Prabhakaran as responsible for the assassination. Though all 26 were sentenced to death by the TADA court, the sentences of quite a few were reduced to life imprisonment. There has always been much speculation that it was not just the LTTE, but other forces were also behind the killing, a factor that was probed by the Jain Commission.

Gandhi also spoke about the assassination of his grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv, stressing that it was a price that the family knew they had to pay for taking a stand. “In politics, when you mess with the wrong forces, and if you stand for something, you will die”, he said.

“We knew that my father was going to die. We knew that my grandmother was going to die,” he said.

“My grandmother told me she was going to die and my father…I told him he was going to die,” Rahul said on Friday.

“In politics, we deal with forces, big forces, which are normally not visible. You are dealing with structures that are powerful. Those are not visible but they can hurt you,” he added.

READ ALSO: Rajiv Gandhi assassination case: Convict Perarivalan’s mother urges TN CM to extend parole

The Congress put out a video of the hour-long question-and-answer session on its Twitter handle.

Watch it here: 

Congress President Rahul Gandhi interacted with IIM alumni in Singapore. #RGinSingapore #IIMChat https://t.co/bW8VRxwxWj

— Congress (@INCIndia) March 10, 2018

Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by security guards with whom he used to play badminton.

Rajiv Gandhi was blown up by a Sri Lankan Tamil woman suicide bomber at an election rally near Chennai in 1991. It was an assassination that LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham, according to a 2016 book, had conceded was the outfit’s “biggest mistake”.

Mr. Gandhi, 47, has spoken about his father’s assassination in the past but so far, declined to talk about his father’s assassins. Like when J Jayalalithaa had proposed to release the seven persons (Perarivalan, Murugan, Santhan, Nalini, Robert Pious, Jayakumar and Ravichandran ) serving a life term in 2016, the Congress had strongly objected but Mr Gandhi had underlined this was a decision the government had to take. “I will not give my personal opinion on this,” he had said.

In January this year, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to respond within three months to the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to release the seven convicts in the assassination case.